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The Source of a Preacher’s Authority with Eric Attinger · Ministry Minded

• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Ministry-Minded Podcast,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: a show that seeks to marvel at the mercy of God that meets us in our messy ministries.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm, of course, your host, Pastor Brad Gray.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: I serve as the senior pastor of Stonington Baptist Church right here in Pax Sinus,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Pennsylvania,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm so elated to share part two of a sort of mini-series of conversations that
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've enjoyed having with my assistant pastor here at Stonington,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor Eric Adinger.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a joy just to chat with him and just riff about theology and especially
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: the theology behind the sermon event,
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: the theology and philosophy behind preaching.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're engaging in in part two of this sort of extended conversation
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: about all the ins and outs of what makes for a good and faithful sermon.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: As you might glean from this particular episode,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: it's going to become pretty clear right away what was at the beating heart
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: behind this particular conversation, which is the authority of the sermon.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: What makes a sermon authoritative?
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  SPEAKER_01: And is that a biblically based dynamic in which to discuss?
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  SPEAKER_01: And where does that authority come from?
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  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to talk a lot about that.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about what it makes for a good sermon illustration and should
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: sermon illustrations be included when you're doing sermon writing.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think all of this,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: again,
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  SPEAKER_01: is going to be super helpful if you are a preacher preparing sermons,
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  SPEAKER_01: but also if you are a person sitting under preaching on a weekly basis.
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  SPEAKER_01: I pray that this conversation enlightens you, encourages you, but also helps to...
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: perhaps curtail some negative expectations that you might have whenever you come to church.
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  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully this is a blessing to you.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I pray that's my sincerest prayer.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So sit back and enjoy this conversation,
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: part two of preaching faithful sermons with my good friend and brother,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Eric Adinger.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Last time we were talking about,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: we really kind of spent a lot of time focusing on like preaching Christ alone,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: preaching Christ and all of scripture and stuff like that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And of course, we can't exhaust that.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to like rehash everything there.
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  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I wanted to also talk about, and this is not what I sent you.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's all right.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you had to either elaborate on or discuss or describe what makes preaching authoritative,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: where does the preacher's authority come from?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think in answering that question, that can also lead to a lot of...
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: the pitfalls of preaching,
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  SPEAKER_01: because if you have a bad source of authority,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: so to speak,
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  SPEAKER_01: then you get into all these kind of pitfalls of preachers that we can go into.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: But anyways, how would you answer that question of where does a preacher's authority come from?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So do you mean when you say authority,
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: like do you mean as like the authority of their message or the authority of their
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: ability to do it?
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  SPEAKER_00: I would say the authority of their message.
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  SPEAKER_00: Good.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought.
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  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to clarify.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the authority of their message,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think obviously comes in the easy,
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  SPEAKER_00: simple term would be straight from scripture.
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  SPEAKER_00: I would say that,
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  SPEAKER_00: um,
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  SPEAKER_00: and you can make the argument that all of us,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 28,
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  SPEAKER_00: we all have,
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  SPEAKER_00: uh,
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  SPEAKER_00: the authority to speak the message of the gospel for sure.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel message is there.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um,
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  SPEAKER_00: Um,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the scripture and Jesus himself demands that it go out,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is why it's one of the most important things.
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  SPEAKER_00: When people talk about Sunday, it always bothers me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go off a slight tangent here,
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  SPEAKER_00: but when people bother me,
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  SPEAKER_00: they go on places based on their worship or their children's ministry and all these things.
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  SPEAKER_00: When really the Bible, all those things are all great and they can all help.
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  SPEAKER_00: Obviously we have worship, but there's way more ways of worshiping.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not just music.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's through preaching and things like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And preaching is really the one thing that seems to be essential.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the authority that the pastor always has is to preach the gospel, to preach the scriptures.
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  SPEAKER_00: And like we've been saying, to point them to Jesus.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because when you have these other people going to these other churches because they
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  SPEAKER_00: have a nice little children's ministry or they really like the music,
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  SPEAKER_00: that's fine and all.
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  SPEAKER_00: But if they're never really prioritizing the preaching, things can get really, really out of whack.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if I answered the question there.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, you did.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because...
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  SPEAKER_01: The easiest answer is the best answer.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's the most obvious.
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  SPEAKER_01: A sermon's authority is always derived from...
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  SPEAKER_01: It's always outside of the pastor himself or even his sermon itself.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: It comes from Scripture,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: which again is why we were emphasizing the fact in the last part that all of this...
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: preaching material that we have has to be derived from scripture alone because
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  SPEAKER_01: again that's our only authority but i think this also lends itself to this notion
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  SPEAKER_01: that um i think we also have to be aware of the fact that a preacher does stand as
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: someone with authority but we could say it's borrowed because i think that like a
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: really good point to to strive to make is the fact that
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  SPEAKER_01: Or let me just say it this way.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of the caricatures of fundamentalist preachers are downstream of
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: preachers kind of believing their own hype.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Can I say it that way?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great point.
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  SPEAKER_01: Where it's like they're kind of buying into their own authority.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're buying into their own... It's kind of just hubris, really.
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  SPEAKER_01: But actually, the irony is...
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  SPEAKER_01: as good or well prepared or as well sort of manicured as your sermon may be it's
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: only as good as your realization that your authority is not yours that's a really
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: that's a really great uh way to put it and it ties into like um well i remember
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: hearing this in like leadership back in the day whenever i don't know one of my
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: leadership classes or something basically somebody said the effect of
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  SPEAKER_00: Those who desire the power of leadership or power of preaching,
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  SPEAKER_00: the ones that probably shouldn't have it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the ones who don't care at all about how much power they have,
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  SPEAKER_00: they just want to preach the message,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: those are the ones that should have it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But so often, it is so backwards.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you have people saying, well, I don't need any power.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to be a preacher.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't want all this stuff.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have these people,
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  SPEAKER_00: like you're talking about with hubris,
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  SPEAKER_00: where they'll start walking around saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: because I'm the preacher,
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  SPEAKER_00: this,
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  SPEAKER_00: this,
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  SPEAKER_00: and this.
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  SPEAKER_00: And like you're saying, they're stealing the authority from the Lord in a way, and they're almost...
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: tithes themselves and i mean you read scripture and you see that all over which i
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: think why there's so many stories of people like david um who you can even fall at
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: times um you got people like gideon and that's like a lesser known one but he
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  SPEAKER_00: starts out really humble and then gets full of pride and it's just the goes to show
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  SPEAKER_00: that and he's kind of like a preacher in a way like getting at first is feeble like
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  SPEAKER_00: and god's like i'm gonna choose you to do this thing just like he kind of chooses
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  SPEAKER_00: you can say he chooses
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  SPEAKER_00: preachers in the same way and gideon goes from saying no i don't i don't think i
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  SPEAKER_00: think you got the wrong guy to by the end like bring me all your gold and i think
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  SPEAKER_00: it's just like one of those what we see in preachers is what you're referring to is
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  SPEAKER_00: at some point they i i know him personally that that went really rogue um but in
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  SPEAKER_00: the beginning i i do believe that they started out good very much like gideon but
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  SPEAKER_00: over time that's why i think even preachers have to constantly check the
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  SPEAKER_00: People like you and I,
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  SPEAKER_00: we think we have it under control,
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  SPEAKER_00: but we have to constantly check it because the story of Gideon goes that it just
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  SPEAKER_00: got out of control,
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  SPEAKER_00: and at some point he didn't check it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just like this preacher that I'm thinking in my mind got something here,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: got something there,
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  SPEAKER_00: got to their head a little bit,
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  SPEAKER_00: and by the next thing you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: they were a completely different person over the few decades that they had been
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  SPEAKER_00: doing this.
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  SPEAKER_00: What also hurts is probably other people's opinions of preachers, people outside of preachers.
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  SPEAKER_00: When you go and you talk to a church, what is a preacher supposed to do?
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  SPEAKER_00: Where does the preacher get their authority?
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  SPEAKER_00: This would be a great question for them because I've heard so many times, why is this?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because my preacher, and he knows the Bible really well.
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  SPEAKER_00: I literally had one time this past year.
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  SPEAKER_00: Something happened where I thought there was something doctrinally off with this
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  SPEAKER_00: one church I had visited.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I talked to somebody there about it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they said,
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  SPEAKER_00: Eric,
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  SPEAKER_00: you make some really great points with stuff,
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  SPEAKER_00: but my pastor disagrees based on that sermon.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, he's a really good Bible preaching guy.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing that I had to go with the clarity and say, hey, we're all good.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm not even saying this is not Bible preaching,
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  SPEAKER_00: but we can all be wrong about something,
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  SPEAKER_00: especially if the scripture says so.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I tried to make it a teaching point for that person.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, don't put all your eggs in one guy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Don't put it in one basket.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because...
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  SPEAKER_00: The mini goes rogue or the mini has Tony Evans kind of a situation even.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now you're not going to go around saying he's a Bible guy anymore.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're going to lose credit.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then these are the kind of people that start to lose, quote unquote, lose their faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they didn't really maybe even have any faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: They just had a celebrity or some star they focused on.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good point.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it makes me think again.
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  SPEAKER_01: And my mind is always going here.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it makes me think again of...
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: of like that moment of conflict that led well it didn't lead but it was you know
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: part of like the reformation movement where you have the curia of the catholic
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  SPEAKER_01: church who is beholden to scripture but also to their own institutional traditions
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  SPEAKER_01: yes versus luther who
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: in a way,
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  SPEAKER_01: who is standing there,
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  SPEAKER_01: and as he says,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: in that famous Diet of Worms speech,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: my heart is captive to the Word of God.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of, you know, where the notion of sola scriptura is kind of born out of.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: But that's sort of sola scriptura in its essence, which is, that's where all authority comes from.
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  SPEAKER_01: Not from this plus this.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's this alone.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's where it comes from.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think in many ways,
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Again, maybe we shouldn't always just pick on fundamentalists, but it's easy to.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're easier targets.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Easier targets,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: but that idea of like,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I have authority because I'm the quote-unquote man of God or that kind of stuff.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: There is a certain significance to the office,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: but technically speaking,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: there is no authority within a pastor's office.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's all downstream of who they belong to.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a good point.
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  SPEAKER_01: Instead of like...
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: hey, I just have this because of who I am.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually, no, I have authority, but only as I have it within the confines of a borrowed authority.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: but I think that's exactly where people get it all wrong because these pastors
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: start with themselves.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, it's really downstream because it's not flowing.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really good point because it's not flowing out of them, really.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's flowing to them from the Lord directly.
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  SPEAKER_00: And flowing through them are supposed to be channels when we're preaching for God.
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  SPEAKER_00: But how often,
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking again,
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  SPEAKER_00: I won't use names,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm thinking of the specific people that I know in the past that sometimes you
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: could even see their sermons had a personal tilt.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: and I think we'll get into storytelling at some point,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm not to say that you can't interject your own life because there's a lot of
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  SPEAKER_00: teaching points in your own life.
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  SPEAKER_00: But there were times,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I'm sure this can't be the only case,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's archetypes of people,
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  SPEAKER_00: but this one preacher,
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  SPEAKER_00: he could tell if he was going through something or somebody was,
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: quote-unquote,
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  SPEAKER_00: attacking him.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden,
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  SPEAKER_00: his next three sermons were about tax and snakes in the garden and how there's
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: always a Judas in your group and all these things.
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  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you had to wonder,
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  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: did God really want him to deliver this message,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: or is he trying to send out...
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: um these subtle undertones to his adversaries who might be listening tweeting
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: through his sermon that's correct and and we got to the bottom point where we end
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: up leaving a bunch of us but we got to the point where yeah we think there's a lot
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: of mystery code going underneath and it was even the point where a lot of other
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: people are saying is this pastor preaching like at us or to us and like what's he
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: talking about it got so bad that more and more people noticed like depending on
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: what happened to the preacher last week is the message you're about to get
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Which is dangerous.
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  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, this can't be the only person doing this kind of stuff.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's definitely not.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's – I don't know where it comes from.
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  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just our own sin nature or our own hubris again, our own pride.
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  SPEAKER_01: But like there's definitely something in which we start to believe our own press, that kind of idea.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's really easy for pastors to do that.
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  SPEAKER_01: They are in –
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: In human terms,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not speaking theologically,
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: but in human terms,
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: they are the quote-unquote center of attention during a Sunday service,
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: more often than not.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're on this platform.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're raised up.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And rightly so,
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: if they're faithfully putting themselves under the submission of the Word of God,
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  SPEAKER_01: then they are doing so as a channel of grace and truth.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes, regrettably, that position can be like this...
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: this moment of like absorption and you're absorbing attention, you're absorbing a claim.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then once that becomes your objective,
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: then you're going to try to either like excuse or justify ways to like get rid of
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: the negativity or get rid of those other voices.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because again,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: those are like little chinks,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: little,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: little attacks and assaults at your authority,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you are the authoritative one, it's almost like, how dare you?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because you look in the scriptures, and this all ties in.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going over Satan right now and the angelology and how pride obviously is his thing,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: the I will statements.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have obviously that same kind of feature to ourselves, unfortunately.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're the center of attention, which we talked last time about.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: The easiest one to pick is David and Goliath where everybody thinks they're David and not Goliath.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's because we're the center of our own story, and every day we are the main character in our lives.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it literally takes training,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: which is the only reason that any of us are even capable of doing it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Power of the Lord and training to not put yourself at the center of the story.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's why kids are the way they are.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why kids say,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: that's my toy,
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: that's mine,
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: that's mine,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: is because they're the center and they're not thinking outside of that.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So when a preacher, that means a preacher can...
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: fall into these traps,
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: like we're saying,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one on stage,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one that delivers the message,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the things,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: and then you have people who innocently might say,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: and it's not even inappropriate,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: you and I have got this,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: too,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: where people say,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: that was a really good word,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: or that message touched me,
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: or I haven't forgot about what you said two years ago about yada,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: yada,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: yada,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: we all...
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: get those to some extent.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even think they're even trying,
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: they're being very legitimate and they're legitimate to take and say,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: yep,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: the Lord used me or whatever.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: But over time those can compound.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're not constantly rebalancing, recentering, okay, we're not the center of this.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the center of this.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're just beneficiaries of all this.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not recentering,
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: it's like,
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: it kind of reminds me of like,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: if you clean your house,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: you can clean your house once,
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: but if you don't clean your house for three or four weeks,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: it's going to pile up.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: You got to make sure that you're doing some regular cleaning and
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the same way it goes with our mental life, our spiritual life, same kind of concept there.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: One thousand percent.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then once you start to believe your own press, you start to protect that position.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: You start to try to deter any detractors.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So how in I had another question, but it left my head.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: But so in in resisting that, well, like.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: What are some ways to resist?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know that might be an obvious question.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: What are some ways that as a genuine-hearted,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: faithful preacher,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: what are some ways that they can resist that urge to,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: quote-unquote,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: become the center of attention when it comes to both sermon preparation and sermon writing?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And sermon delivery, too.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the whole process, I think, is really important.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So always revisiting Scripture,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: obviously,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: reminding yourself constantly that the Lord is the center of everything,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: that the Lord is where everything derives from,
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: the only ability we even have.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think constant reminder there,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture,
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: and just staying into that realization,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: maybe making that part of your life.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: routine is just kind of remembering this but also outside of that i think there's
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: even some other practical things that we might not immediately think of um a lot of
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: times we could even ask for feedback i think regularly from people we love not from
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: the people that want to pat us on the back but like for example you know what i
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: mean if we go to our wife they're not going to say that sounded really good they're
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: gonna say i don't know why you're saying that you know what i mean i've had that
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: happen before which is great
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I think sometimes it's almost even maybe not even a bad thing to say, like, where did I fall?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Where did I fail?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Where where did I even just analyzing yourself every once in a while?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, where did I maybe maybe even mean for itself?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: We even have to evaluate our words.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where did I come across where it maybe sounded off from?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: where I should have been at or whatever.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think it's definitely a constant thing you gotta keep up on.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe even just reflecting on your own,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: not that you have to listen to your sermon every single time,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: full way through,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: although there's nothing wrong with that of course,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: but just to be reflective on yourself.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And remind because you know how it is.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can get so caught up in a busy Sunday that you have to make announcements.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have people in your ear saying, what about the fellowship here?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or, hey, I have an idea for this.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you have so many things you can get caught up in your message.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: You just got to make sure to check yourself and say, hey, am I clear-minded?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Am I coming?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, am I coming across as I'm the authority?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Did I even happen in my mind for a little bit that because I'm the past?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard again,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I won't give names again,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: but I heard somebody literally say in the past year from a local church said that
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: made some joke about, you know, my wife worries about the church will go like this.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to remind her, I'm the senior pastor.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as I'm here, this won't happen.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And while that's true, I was like, that's probably not the place to say it on the stage.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And those are one of those kinds of things.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a self-reflective person by the end of the night,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had a psychology teacher one time say,
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: one of the best things you can do for yourself.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: is at the end of the night, reflect on your day, and then prepare your mind for the schedule tomorrow.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: It reduces a lot of your anxiety and helps you perform.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: But if I were that pastor,
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I would have reflected that night and said,
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: while that was all true and good,
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm not going to let these things happen,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I probably could have worded it a different way that would not reflect.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Even if he didn't believe it,
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not even saying he believes that he's the high,
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: mighty authority of that,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: whatever.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: but to at least come out and know how to convey it to other people because that's
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: how you know better than I do that words can get twisted and you get all kinds of
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: emails about things you never meant.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the other thing too, just to kind of look out for.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is a really helpful practice though.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: This idea of like actually taking time to reflect on how did this sermon go?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that, and that may sound weird, but I think it's like,
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sermons are somewhat of like this, like they're like this unique thing.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is like you're giving this.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's like, let's say like 20, 30 hours go into a 45 minute sermon.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then you really have no bearing on.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: on how that sermon is going to be carried forward into people's lives.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So for all intents and purposes,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: at least from a preacher's perspective,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can say this and perhaps you would reiterate,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: which is like you preach the sermon and then it kind of like dies.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you have no idea
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: If the life of that sermon is going to keep on going in people's lives.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's sometimes where we want to extend that,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: where we want to be the manipulators of that in people's lives and stuff like that.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it always comes back to, hey, let's reflect.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Let's put ourselves under the submission and authority of God.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: of who God is,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: like this idea that he's revealed this word and then realize,
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think like,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: so if we,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: let's make this alliterated reflect,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: but then I would also be reminded that you're replaceable.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think this comes like to stick with the ours, this comes from reading.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the most helpful ways to like remove or just like deter or detain any sort of like
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: acclaim or applause like filling you with big head is realizing is reading widely
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: not only about preaching but reading church history because like like one of the
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: things i've been realizing and it's not like a novel thing which is just the fact
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: that like
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: The church has been around for a thousand years,
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: which means there's tens of thousands,
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: if not millions of preachers that have come and gone.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the church still exists.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: The church is still going on.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Still running.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Going pretty strong.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Despite all those failures of people in the past.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And even today.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And even today.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just to say that, like, while...
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: We are called to an important calling.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: We aren't irreplaceable within this ongoing mission of the kingdom of God that's at
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: work in our lives,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: which I think is kind of sobering,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: but it's also humbling.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's also, in many ways, it's kind of life-giving.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can be totally sold out to my calling, and the outcome of the kingdom isn't resting on me.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: hitting home run sermons every time it's a relief stick with the r's it's a relief
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: i like what you said and you are kind of tying this into because you talked about
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: how it can take hours and hours and i always i think about that a lot i'm sure you
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: do everyone's about to like man we are soaking hours hours deep marinating in these
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: messages marinating these scriptures and things will still come to you five days
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: later you maybe even after your sermon like man i wish i would have
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Put that in there,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: but you spend all this time,
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: and I think we can't help but,
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: humanly speaking,
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: factor that in,
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: saying,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: man,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: if I spend 25 hours on this thing,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: these people better like it,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: and it better benefit them,
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: and it comes back to our thing.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: We all think about this, like, man, I really hope that was a good message.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I really hope that, because I put all my time into it, right?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I found over the years, like...
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like anything in life when you're like, hey, I think this is going to be a really good one.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then it doesn't hit as hard as you hit.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it hits and people loved it and you just still feel like a failure.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or you feel like every once in a while there's these times like, well, man, I'm going to go out here.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: This summer might be my suckiest one I've ever done.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go out here.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because you think that you had only 10 hours of prep.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh, I had a lot of emergencies pop up.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to go out there and fly by to see my pants.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then later on they say, this changed my life.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was never a Christian before.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now I really, and you're like, wow.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I always tell people,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: it's like kind of the sales approach they teach you in sales is like,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: try to sell to everybody because you never know,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: what's going to be good and what's going to be bad to somebody else.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with our sermons.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So don't get so caught up if you wanted everybody to applaud and stand up and cheer
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: and you saw Joe in the back nodding off.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And don't be surprised if you thought, man, I didn't get any sleep last night.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And those words that you think,
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going out here to do my job,
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: those words could take off and create the next evangelist or whatever.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's one of the hardest things I remember because we all have expectations,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: like you said,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: on our own words and what they're going to do.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's all,
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: again,
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: when you take this perspective of where does the authority come from,
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: it all comes from God.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: We go back to the things in Athens where it's all on God will deliver the message,
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: and it's up to God,
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: the Spirit,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: and those people if they accept it or deny it,
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: if it's life-changing or if it's not.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when you take that away, that stress comes away.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Although we're still going to think like, man, I gave 30 hours and this better be good.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I think when you do that,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: even if it hits,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: you can't even say,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: that was because I put 30 hours in,
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: which is where our minds will eventually at first take us.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, wow, that's because I got to make sure I do that prep because of my prep work.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It did that when in reality,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: those could have been,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: if God wanted those words could have been completely empty,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: but he gave you something in there that works,
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: which again,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: like you said,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: it's a relief.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think not as much stress.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think it comes from a really intentional...
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: like communion with the Lord.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean that in any sort of like cliche way,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: but like,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: cause I think like you alluded to a minute ago,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: which is the fact that like on a Sunday morning,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: there could be like so many different distractions and like little things that are
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: coming up to like people that are coming up to you with different words or
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: different complaints,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: maybe all,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: all kinds of things,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: all other worries.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's like, Oh yeah, I actually have to preach.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I have to do this job.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's like a tendency to,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think in some ways where it's, like, you're delivering, like, a script.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a huge difference between preaching and, like, preaching.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if I can say it that way.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know exactly what you mean.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very scripted, very note-heavy.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Versus very impromptu.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: The scripture popped into my mind because the Lord gave it to me.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas, yeah, you can be quiet about it.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say I'm like word for word manuscript, but I have a lot of notes.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: But like there's definitely times when I can tell where like I've been in really
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: like amazing communion with the Lord to where when I get up to preach,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: the sermon is I'm not just like delivering a sermon.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's more like it's just kind of pouring out of me and like.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the difference is granularly,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's just distraction or things within my own head or just stuff within our
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: own lives,
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: but there is a difference,
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: and I think that part of...
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: deterring a claim for yourself is realizing that that doesn't happen because of you.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: That happens because of what,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: it does happen because you're like,
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: you're in communion with the Lord,
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: but it doesn't happen because of your ability,
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: your grit,
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: your fortitude.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's none of that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's you in communion with the Lord who is bringing you by his spirit to discern
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: his word and then declare his word.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: So all of that, again, like to use the
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: The same sort of terminology.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is all downstream of who God is and what he's revealed to us in his scriptures,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: which makes it a joy to preach,
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: in many ways.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing, just to put a bow on some of the other things we talk about, which is like.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of preachers do this,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: and I strive to not do it,
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: maybe perhaps even to my own detriment,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is just the fact that I try to never put myself as the center of a story or
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: the hero of a story.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: I always try to not be the main point of an illustration.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think there's merit to that?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I would say.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think so just because it's not a bad practice.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard pastors do it all kinds of ways.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: But because, again, all eyes are on you.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's actually a really helpful thing because people are looking up there.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're the hero of everything, it's almost like how people look at you anyway.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know the struggles we have behind the scenes of the things that we're dealing with.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they look at you,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: and a lot of times people say this to me,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm sure you get this,
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just wish I were as good enough Christian,
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: had as much faith as you,
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: and I wish I had my life all together.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know how you get that stuff.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you doing this helps combat that kind of a belief because these people
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: already think that because you're up there preaching,
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: you have it way more together because they're not qualified to be up there.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: They don't understand the Bible.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're smart, and you are living the perfect Christian life, and now you're the hero of the story.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not even a hero.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that they can hear somebody – I actually do commend – I've seen a
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: preacher before that would actually make themselves a sinner as many times as they
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: could on a Sunday.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: They'd make themselves – they'd make sure to point out their flaws in a way.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously they might not come out and spell out everything you say and give a
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: counseling session or anything,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: but they will come out and say,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've been struggling this past week with depression,
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: and I didn't know if I was going to make it through.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's nice to hear a pastor say that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just like, again, it's kind of like when you –
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: So many times our kids, I always think about this being a parent.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same concept because you're a spiritual parent to these people.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: How much do you let your kid know that you're suffering?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And how much do you hide it?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what helps them to know that you're human and that you don't know everything versus...
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like that thing with a kid.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: You don't tell your kid if you're financially struggling or whatever.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't tell them everything.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: But if you also let them know you know everything,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: the kid grows up thinking that they aren't as good as you.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And psychologists say, oh, it's healthy to point out when you fail and point out your kids.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the same way.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what you're kind of talking about here is you're not making yourself a hero.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're in the story, it's probably not for a good reason like you're saying here.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that hammers home the same kind of thing.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, did you want your kids to think you're perfect?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: it's a great thing to have them respect you and everything,
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: but you don't want them to feel like you're so perfect that they think they're a
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: failure when they're very much like you.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a very healthy thing of what you're doing there,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: pointing out when you do this,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: it's actually more relatable to them because they're more like you than they realize.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And your stories are probably helping them, I think, grasp that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: that and then like I also just think that if you if you're always the hero of all
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: these stories,
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: then like it's almost as if your piety becomes the driver of authority.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And like that becomes like this aspirational thing that everyone else is is striving after.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: In substitution of what should be the authority,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: what should be the motivator,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: which again,
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: just to not beat a dead horse,
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: but it's the word of God.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: So putting yourself,
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: in submission to the fact that,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: hey,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: you're called to this,
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: but even as Paul says in 1 Timothy,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still the foremost sinner,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: even though I'm called to this.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: But putting yourself into that type of mindset, I think...
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: continues this championing of the fact that the only authoritative thing within
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: this preaching event is not me,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: it's not my sermon,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: it's not anything to do with me.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually the grace of God.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's authoritative.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's going to last and endure and actually change people.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's the other thing I think that sometimes preachers can get into if
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: they start to buy their own authority is just this idea that,
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're the ones that are changing people.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're the ones that are,
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: able to speak into people's lives and,
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: change them for the better.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: When really, I'm not a change agent of anything.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: God's spirit is.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a relief.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like we said, it's a relief.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think,
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: again,
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: that goes by into things we talked about last time,
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: why numbers and attendance become such a big deal to preachers.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's tied to what,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: and I think any good preacher,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: even if they're trying to diss themselves,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: every once in a while the numbers dip.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: They can start to think, am I doing something wrong here?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: When in reality,
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: I love to point this out to preachers,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: history shows that the more your numbers dip,
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: the more you're onto the right things.
• 30:30
  Usually.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Usually.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not always.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not always, obviously.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: There can be reasons you're running people out of the door.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're starting a cult.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have run into some real situations where leaving the church was great and getting people out of there.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time,
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: it's like one of those – there's also – the reason there's so many megachurches are
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: thriving is because –
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: They keep sin out of the conversation because when you start telling people the
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: truth about some of these things that society doesn't agree with,
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: it can rub people,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: the wrong way.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: But really getting back at what you're saying here is not making yourself the
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: center of the story because that can really dilute things and really cause issues.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: i just again look at the effects on people because preachers clearly their whole
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: job is to have effects on people to live more godly to think about christ be more
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: christ-centered um but when like going back to when you put yourself at the center
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: i i just know people that quote unquote go to church not to our church per se but
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: They go to a church,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: and every time something's wrong in their life,
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: the devil's attacking them and stuff.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't help but think that they have a preacher that has been telling them,
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: you're David,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: and Goliath is always coming for you.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to slay your giants.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then every time on social media,
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: it's like,
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: you've got to pray harder because Satan's after me today.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you find out they did something stupid, like drove without a license or something.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a Satan attack, right?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to start weighing these things down.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, where are you getting your spiritual information from?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're getting it from a pastor who's telling you you've got to go out and slay your giants.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: So every one of your problems is not your flesh.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's the giants outside.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good point,
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: and it actually relates to,
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: by the time this airs,
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've already preached it,
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: but the sermon that I'm working on is coming from Genesis chapter 32,
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: which,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: as you know,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: culminates with Jacob wrestling with this mystery man.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: But before that, I think it's so fascinating to watch the lead-up to that moment where he's by himself.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And at the beginning of Genesis 32, he's met by some angels who...
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: very clearly are reminding him of the fact that, like, hey, God is still with you.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's that reminder of, hey, just as at Bethel, we're still with you.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: God's still with you.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: His promise is still true.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, right away he sends out these messengers to kind of, like, get a lay of the land.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, how's Esau feeling?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they come back, and they're like, hey, he has, like, 400 dudes ready to meet you.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: And, like, immediately...
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: What does Jacob do?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: He goes into this mode,
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: this scramble mode of he separates his people,
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: he separates himself into two camps,
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: and then he starts making all these preparations to send all these gifts to Esau to
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: appease him and pacify him and almost buy him off.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, can I just throw you a bunch of stuff?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is that going to make you happy?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: But then if you even look at his prayer in the middle of that,
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: it's such a fascinating prayer because he's like,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of like what you just alluded to is where it's like,
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: this person has this problem,
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: but it's really self-inflicted where Jacob's going to God.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, Hey God, um, I have this problem.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's kind of this big deal.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to deliver me.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you promised me.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: He says, you promised me it would go well with me.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: and the whole time I imagined God being like,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: don't you remember like the people who just visited you like two seconds ago?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, man.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is really self-inflicted, but,
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: It just reminds me of the fact that,
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: putting ourselves in submission to God while uncomfortable is,
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I would say,
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: it's like the modus operandi for Christian living.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that goes from a person in the pew to a pastor.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's always about realizing that you're not...
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: the center of this thing you're not you're not the one that all of this is
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: revolving around no actually there's someone a lot better someone a lot truer
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: someone a lot greater that is actually at the center of all this which is as we've
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: been saying it's a relief amen amen and i wish more churches like would would do
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: that and again we talked about last time why they don't i think because you got to
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: keep people certainly to some extent comfortable wanting to come back right
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be really hard when you start to say these kind of things,
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: because they're not as,
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: it doesn't make you feel as good if you're not the hero,
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: It makes you feel a lot better if you are the hero.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I love what you're talking about here, and I wish more would adopt it.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And there are really good churches out there that are hammering on it, but there's also ones...
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you could probably boil it down to,
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: which churches are,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: godly and thriving in a healthy – not so much numbers,
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: but healthy.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And which ones are unhealthy, regardless of numbers.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's probably a lot has to do with where Jesus is at center-wise.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: How far out of the center he is,
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: probably how far out your church is scrambling and failing in certain aspects.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think also, too, if – because I think this topic of authority is so –
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: significant because again to kind of tie this back to Luther and what we were
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: talking about earlier if and this is kind of anecdotal it's off the top of my head
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: but I will just say that like almost all of the great revival movements if you will
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: how do they all start well
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Generally speaking,
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would say they all started with people realizing the authority of the Bible above
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: them and then also the authority of the Bible that's for them.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then everything kind of just bursts out from there.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just the Reformation.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Go back to the revival with Ezra.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if you read Ezra, I think it's chapter 8, right?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're all like...
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: in that scene where he creates this thing where they start preaching and they're
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: just preaching the book of the law and then suddenly revival's breaking out or if
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: you go back even further Josiah they find these the books of the law and like I
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: imagine like you know blowing dust off them but
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's occurring there is always the authority of Scripture is the preeminent thing
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: rather than some sort of scheme of man.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Where instead of the charisma or charm or the eloquence of man being the driver of revival,
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: it's actually the authority of Scripture.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Which, it reminds me of the Luther quote where he's like, you know, I did nothing.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just drank back, I just sat back and drank Wittenberg beer.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the word of God did everything.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Did all the work.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a great point because,
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: again,
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: I took public policy and public speaking when I was in college.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: and they give you all these points that definitely help me get better at speaking
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: like make sure you project vocally make sure you slow down here make sure you have
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: these strong points and make sure to have counter arguments that you're already
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: going to counter and there's all this thing make sure you have some charm don't
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: look you know the positive demeanor there's all these things that you can get into
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: it's like well if i want to be a really good preacher and we've like to some extent
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: maybe we're younger or something maybe too we're like how can i get this message of
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: jesus to somebody else in a better way yeah
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if I do it in a more exciting manner,
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: or I show him something from culture,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: or do something like this.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And things can work, obviously, the way God wants them to do.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's that thing, the authority of it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I don't have to be charming.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to be witty.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to have a good joke in everyone to make people laugh,
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: to get them paying attention to my stuff.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: If so, there's a bigger problem.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just like what Luther refers to.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm just going to sit back.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of made that movie, I don't know if you ever saw What About Bob?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: But when he's out there sailing, and he's like...
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: My trick is I just let the book do all the work.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's my trick.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like the same kind of thing.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just let the Bible do all the work.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's your trick, Eric?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's your trick, Brad?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just let the Bible do all the work.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just do the whole thing.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's how it works.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that kind of brings me to this point,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: which is I think a lot of time there's almost too much of an emphasis on
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: on adding and including illustrations in your sermons.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like, hey, we have to have illustrations.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: We have to have stuff.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I understand kind of sometimes where that comes from, because if you look at Jesus's ministry,
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: you could probably say that his parables were quote-unquote illustrations if you
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: want to look at the definition of the term.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: He's illustrating a point by telling the story.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay,
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: so if you're using that as your framework,
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: pastors have to illustrate points with certain stories or whatever.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I almost think that there's almost...
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: too much of an emphasis on like,
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: if you're not adding illustration to every point,
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: then you're probably not preaching as effectively.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say in response to that?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: What's your thought on that?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great point.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think it's actually perfect because you just gave us some really good examples.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even dig too far in my mind to.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just think of Ezra and I think of Josiah you mentioned.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt...
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: They got up there,
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: and I could be wrong,
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: because it doesn't say in Scripture,
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: but I doubt they got up there and said,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: let me tell you about this one time when I was a shepherd down by Mahanaim.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, what does it say?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: It just says they were reading it.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Reading it out loud, public, and that's where the power was.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Even the Shema...
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Shamal is like, listen and not listen, but actively listen and do is basically what it is.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: And like, there's nothing special about that.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I'm going to read these words and get up there and I read this.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is going to come out and you're going to respond to it.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I definitely don't think there's a requirement by any means.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: However, I would go on and say, like, you know, I've used them.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: You've used them.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're definitely illustrations are definitely helpful.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really interesting just because.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: So in some of my other jobs, I worked at art ministry.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of psychology involved in marketing and sales tax and things.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that's really fascinating to me that does tie into this that we
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: learned was that parts of your brain.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: So when you hear a story,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: it's like if you hear a story that you've never heard before,
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: your mind will not only like,
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: just process the language,
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: but it will process the experience part.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: So your mind will start to activate different parts of your brain.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you can get emotions tied to them,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: which is why people,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: and you don't have to by any means,
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: but when there's some kind of emotion,
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: some kind of conflict or whatever,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: emotions also affect the human brain.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: So they've actually, psychologists, that's why you'll notice they'll say, tell your why.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why do you do this?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in a good sales pitch, they'll always have the story of a family and how they benefited from,
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: from these things, and it's the simulation of experience and emotion.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it definitely has real scientific effects on the mind, and I think it's beneficial.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: But like we said,
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: it's not required,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't think you're a failure if you forgot to put an illustration or some
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: kind of story in there,
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: because it's not required.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, you can say, well, Jesus, why is some of his stuff so powerful?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, parables are very powerful because they were stories in a way.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were tellings of stories.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they're much more profound.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Some people will say, well, David and Glass is just a story.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Moses is just a story, not a real thing.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's different.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: That was an historical event.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you can get these meanings out of these things.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus clearly used stories to portray deeper messages.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I also think...
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Illustrations can be very helpful in that manner,
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: too,
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: whereas we're trying to teach somebody a biblical concept.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: And to some very newer Christians, it can be really, really difficult.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I do think storytelling can be very helpful there.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: I can think of my last one I did.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking about James 2, and my whole thing was walking while talking.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was trying to emphasize, and I did this whole story on...
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: this guy and his wife who wanted to go hiking,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: so they get a tour guide,
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: but the tour guide's sitting there on the bench and just reading out of a book and
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: not doing anything.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And my goal there was trying to emphasize this more of a biblical concept of reading your Bible
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: And knowing the facts is very different than actively living it out.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I use that,
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm hoping,
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't know for sure,
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm hoping that story,
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: my goal with that thing there was to pull out this more spiritual,
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: biblical concept.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: It had nothing to do with hiking.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't care if they ever went into the woods or not.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: My whole thing was to kind of show these things here.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I think illustrations definitely have a really good place in it.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I would make the same argument you do.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: If people go top-heavy like you failed because you forgot your illustration,
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: I would make the argument that just can't be because we have so many facts.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Josiah and Ezra are the two biggest revivals you can maybe say of the Bible,
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't see any reference to that at all.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: That and then I think – well, I'll say it this way.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen –
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: More than probably bad, bad examples of illustrations rather than good ones.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think the good ones are are not they're not few and far between.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's good examples of illustrations in preacher sermons that I've listened to
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: that I've been a part of.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: like in terms of I've been sitting under,
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: but by the same token,
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: more often than not,
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard like bad illustrations of like stuff being pulled out from nowhere or
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: just a story that probably goes on maybe like five minutes too long.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: No,
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: it's like,
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: I remember this one time there was this revival guy that came to my dad's church
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: and he preached the sermon that probably took like,
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: or he preached the sermon at the end of it.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, like, the last third was this very elaborate story.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember, like, growing up, I would re-listen to that sermon.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: And this is bad on my part.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, I'm self-deprecating in this illustration.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, but...
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I would listen to that sermon basically because I loved that story.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you definitively right now,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea what that sermon was about,
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: what the scripture passage was,
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: what even like the main point of his sermon was striving for.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: what he was striving to communicate or convey through his sermon.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I can remember little bits and pieces of that illustration still to this day.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I was probably like 10.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: And which is just to say, was that a good illustration?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: I would argue no, only because it didn't serve – I don't think it served the sermon in any way.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's,
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: not to just hammer home authority,
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: but,
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: the illustration that you – any illustration that you are wanting to employ obviously,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: clearly,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think has to serve –
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: the message that you're trying to convey rather than be a distraction or kind of be
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: like a really ham-fisted way of like,
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make this point so I just really love this story so let's kind of like
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: twist it in there.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: and it's funny because like you're talking about this story and I can think of just
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: off my mind handfuls of things I've heard of illustrations in the past that they
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: stick with you and some people would say to you,
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Brad,
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: you remember that for over two,
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: three decades now so it must have been pretty effective.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: So effective and good are two different things.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was effective and you were remembering it,
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: so stories are definitely effective that way,
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: but it failed as in the fact that you remembered it so much you don't even know
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: what it was about.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's a bigger blunder than anything.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: That guy did not hit it home.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: He got you.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the sad thing is, had that preacher really done a good job of tying it in and maybe reiterating.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think there's a lot of reiteration that needs to be done even after an illustration.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus gave parables and it says some people won't be able to understand
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: them because they won't have ears to hear or whatever.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't ever want to leave these vague parables and say, figure it out what the kingdom is.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's not our job.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's not our job to do.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a bad idea to reiterate.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I had that story is because of X, Y, and Z about Jesus.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: And not like, wow, I remember that really cool story.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea what it was.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing,
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: because I can think of an example of a church locally that I just didn't want to
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: attend for multiple reasons.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy was really nice, and I don't think he was a heretic by any means.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, he had a pretty decent...
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: theological background, doctrinal beliefs and stuff, but a lot of anecdotes.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there was only one style of illustration, and they were all anecdotal.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I had.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what me and my kids had.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: One time I was this, and I had this.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And, like, we all know anecdotes are effective, but only so effective.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: right now,
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: if a demon came in and went nuts,
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: and you and I,
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: cast out the name of Jesus,
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: say that would never happen or something like that,
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: You and I would have an anecdote,
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: and we might convince some people that maybe didn't believe in the spiritual world
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: that it's real because we'll show them pictures of your office,
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: and we'll show them the marks on our things.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's only going to go so far.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: There will be people that hear it, and it won't be enough.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be enough.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're making most of your sermons anecdotal,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: this is my experience,
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: and I felt the Lord like this,
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: and I had a dream like this,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: or I understood the Bible like this,
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: that's only one way of doing it.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I mean?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's other illustrations.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, it's not just anecdotes.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's basically your own parables.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like mine, when I did the James thing, it was almost my own little parable without names.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Same kind of concept.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: And even then, though, if you stick to that all the time,
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's kind of almost like,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: if we're trying to get this into people's minds,
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: you just gotta think of TV shows.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not all reality shows, it's not all dramas, it's not all comedies.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: So our stories can have some humor in it,
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: but they shouldn't always be funny stories to get people to remember.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: They shouldn't always be emotionally sad ones to get people to remember.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think it has to be a good variety.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: And definitely to escape what you and I are kind of talking about here,
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: these stories that you might remember but have no power because they're anecdotal
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: or they just didn't get tied enough to what they were supposed to be.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we'll get to this topic this time, but I think...
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: within sermon writing and delivery as well as application within sermon writing and
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: delivery are both like two-edged swords,
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: which they're necessary and you haven't really preached a good sermon if you don't
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: in some ways.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not always about illustration per se, but you should include it to explain a point if you need to.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: But
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: They can also become this really negative driver.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: So like,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: especially in terms of like illustration,
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: if you're always illustrating and then it's like,
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: it can go back to once you notice that this type of illustration gets this type of response,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: then you're going to like almost like hammer home.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like marketing.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, and then suddenly.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know, a couple years down the line, suddenly you realize that your sermon is not a sermon.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a stand-up comedy routine.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: You wrote this whole skit out based on the numbers and the stats.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: And once again,
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm driven to just go back to the fact that,
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: while illustration and application are necessary,
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: the primary is always the Word of God.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean that to sound super pious.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that to say, like,
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: those things will become necessary as the biblical text is being expounded.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: we don't have to go into a text with a preconceived notion that's like,
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: I want to illustrate this point here,
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make this application here.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: Rather, if you're putting yourself under the submission
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: in the authority of the Word of God, then that's going to be the driver.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's going to be the main motivator of how you're kind of letting all of this
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: kind of unfold within your sermon,
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: both from the prep side and then the delivery side,
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: too.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, for sure.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's sort of the big thing, too, is how much bandwidth is your story taking up?
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, I've seen some stories that go 10, 15 minutes.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you only have 30, 40 minutes, and that's your real time.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Your attention span might be 20 or less for some people.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you probably already lost your crowd.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it gets really interesting on how heavy, and I think it is just...
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: It always comes down to balance for me.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a good thing to have some stories in there,
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: but you want to have a balance and not be too heavy.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's always just keeping things in balance,
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: coming back,
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: remembering what's most important,
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: that it's scripture,
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: and you don't want to waste your precious 35 to 45 minutes telling your own little
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: anecdotal story,
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: especially if it has no depth and you didn't get to the gospel yet.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to eliminate the gospel to get to your story,
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: which can happen,
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: unfortunately,
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: for some people.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: And, yeah, then what are you doing at that point?
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: What are we doing now?
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what's the point of this?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we standing here?
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: What are we listening to here?
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: But then I think that also is a – I think that's a good point to,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: emphasize,
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: too,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: that there's,
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: this dual war going on where both,
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: from the congregation side and from the preacher's side –
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: where a preacher is trying to do something faithfully to the word of God,
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: and then he's quote-unquote receiving feedback,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: either verbal or nonverbal,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: from his congregation.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then the congregation is coming in,
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: and they're coming in with expectations on what they want to hear,
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: what they are expecting to hear.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so then there's this war going on to where it's like, do I give them...
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: What they need or what they want and that kind of push and pull comes to play,
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: which again is to emphasize,
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: and I know we're beating this horse to death.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: It needs it.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: It comes back to emphasize the fact that both parties, if you will.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: will be deficient in their God-given calling and mission if they are not putting
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: themselves under the authority of the Word of God.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: Which is just to say,
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: and I've said this before,
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've said it from the pulpit even,
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: which is the fact that a sermon is not a one-way monologue.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: It is in the technical sense, but in the spiritual sense, a sermon is...
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: a preacher who is called by God faithfully declaring the word of God,
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: but at the same time,
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: a sermon is a word of God that is being faithfully heard and heeded by a congregation,
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: which is just to say that both parties involved within the sermon event
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: have to approach this event,
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: if you will,
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: faithfully understanding that the word that they are hearing is authoritative,
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: not because of who's preaching it,
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: not because of the celebrity that's behind it,
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: but because of where that authority derives from.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really good point and maybe something that preachers can't control
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: everything about the congregation,
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: but they definitely have an influence over them.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: which is good because people who,
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: think about how the sermon is just to make me feel good or it's a nice little thing
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: to listen to,
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: just like a radio song,
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: radio station.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a talk show that you're just going to, you know, passively listen to and take in.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: And while you think about what you went out for lunch and you're here to check off.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: If it's really important, like what you said, it's always a call to action, really.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Every sermon should be some kind of call to action,
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's the gospel message or whether it's something about your life that
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: needs to become more godly,
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: that we all have work to do,
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: whatever topic or category you're talking about.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes back to Shema.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Shema is to hear and act, not just to hear.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's such a big thing for people.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think things would really change in the American church and the world,
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: specifically,
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: is if every person that came into the church
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: knew they were receiving coaching information, almost, in a way.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's pointing to Jesus,
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: but also coaching them on where they need to focus,
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: what area they could focus on to be more like Christ where they're failing,
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: what they could change about when they walk out those doors,
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: not about,
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: that was a really cool story,
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: and then they'll walk on,
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: which I think,
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: unfortunately,
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: happens more than not.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's kind of like that Netflix, the Netflixive, what's the word?
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: Netflixation?
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: Netflixation, yeah.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's like that mindset is coming into play when you walk into a church where it's like,
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: I can just turn my brain off and consume.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, no, you can't.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: A congregant is just as much an active participant within the sermon as the preacher is.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: To a point.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: To a point, yeah.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're not, like, speaking verbally, but they can, by the way.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: They can speak verbally.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: They can say amen, hallelujah.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the main point is,
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: they're hopefully prayerfully,
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: and,
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: that's my prayer every time is,
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Lord,
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: I pray that you'll allow us to discern the word and hear it and,
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: hear it with ears open.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: of faith because that's when that's when the true quote unquote moment happens when
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: it's like a word being preached faithfully and heard faithfully and that's when you
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: know like the spirit is actually working and moving yeah that's really that's a
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: really important thing and it ties so well into preaching but the fact that like
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: how many people of the church...
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: First of all,
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of people don't realize that the church is just the people,
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: not the building.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's the people,
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: and that's really huge because when you shift that mindset,
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: it's like wherever you are,
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: that's the church.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: It means godly things should be going on wherever you're at, and you're very responsible, and it just...
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that we probably need to shift,
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: and it'll be like this forever and ever,
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: but that it's not the pastor doing 95% to 100% of the work,
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: and you're just throwing money on the plate so he does the job,
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: and you're just buying them off so he does the work you don't have to do.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, very opposite.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: So many people think that if a church isn't thriving,
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: it's because the pastor's not getting enough people,
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: or the pastor's not telling enough people about Jesus.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: When in reality, if you look at the stats, it's just funny, because I'm a stats guy.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love looking at the stuff in psychology and all that kind of things, but
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: For churches,
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: it's like,
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: if you ever look at the stats,
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think like 86% of people that come to the church for the first time were invited
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: by a congregation member.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like 6% or less, something that has to do with a pastor at all.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: And people wonder like, wow, why is this church so dead?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, probably because you weren't actively living
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: it out there like honestly that's what the numbers seem to say is that if people
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: new people are coming in nobody's inviting anybody out here nobody that means
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: nobody's preaching the gospel out there because nobody wants to come because
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: there's nothing changed in your life so we got to change our life out there we have
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: to have people ask why we're different we have to have to answer the gospel and
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: then we got to invite them to church and the pastor can't do that at your job no no
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: that's a good point yeah that's a really good point and again
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: it comes back to authority.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: It comes back to realizing, hey, whose word is this really?
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just an old ancient textbook.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: These are the words of God that he has preserved with living authority and power
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: for us in our present moment.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think realizing that from both the standpoint of a preacher as well as
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: A person sitting in the pews is really transformative.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's really it really changes your whole outlook on what happens when you cross the
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: threshold of a church building.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just like you've iterated before.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just, you know, an hour of entertainment with, you know, a little bit of a spiritual edge.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, you're coming into communion with God.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he has specifically designed that to happen through both his people gathered,
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: but also his word preached.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not to emphasize the preacher.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's to emphasize the word.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the thing that is both driving our gathering, but it's also should be driving our preaching.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's the word alone.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's the word preeminent is the word primary.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: And to speak to that, I'm going to just read one sentence from a book as we're getting ready to wrap up.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a book I just started reading, but I really love it.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a short book, but it is packed with really good nuggets.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's called The Priority of Preaching by Christopher Ashe.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he's using essentially like a couple of different places in Deuteronomy to talk
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: about many of the things that we're talking about through some of these conversations,
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is just the fact that it's preaching that is God's main driver of
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: transforming his church,
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: but informing his church at the same time.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, I liked this line because it kind of wraps up what we've been talking about here, which is,
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: He says on page 47,
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: he says,
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: quote,
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: expository ministry that has the authority of God keeps the preacher on his knees,
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: which I think kind of drives home everything we've been speaking on,
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: which is the fact that if I'm realizing what the word is,
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: as a preacher and I'm,
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm submitting myself to that,
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: then out of that is coming this,
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: this awe,
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: this amazing,
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: we could say experience of the word of God.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then out of that,
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: that time spent with the Lord,
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: that's sort of like where the sermon is driven out of.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: And like, so like,
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: A preacher's truest sermon, if you will, is not always this intellectual lecture.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually his experience of the Word of God on himself, where now he's getting up and preaching.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I was talking about the sermon that kind of flows out of you.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: because you've experienced this same text within your own life.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like, let me give you a lecture on the Hebrew in this certain passage.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's rather, this is what the word of God does to people.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I know because it did it to me.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: And like, that's what authority, that's what the authority of the word should look like.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think then that is...
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when that word is communicated in that way and is heard faithfully,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: then,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: man,
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: you got this amazing moment in which truth can really be conveyed and latched onto.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I think you see transformation happen within people.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: people's lives within communities and then you know prayerfully hopefully the world
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: but that's what it comes back to submission it comes back to putting yourself under
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: the authority of God's word and not not what you want to say but what he has
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: preserved for you to say if I can say it that way I love it yeah and it makes a lot
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: more authentic that way too I think when you've lived it out and you're not forcing
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: anything you're not picking up a story that you can't relate to
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime you relate to it and it pours out that way,
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: it's always going to be effective when it's more authentic in that way.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you've been blessed by this episode of the Ministry Minded podcast.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't already,
• 1:00:38
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• 1:00:40
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• 1:00:41
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• 1:00:42
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• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: Please do that.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: That would help out immensely.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for all of your encouragement, all of your support.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love your notes and your emails and your comments.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: I really, really appreciate that.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you are just having a splendid week.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I pray that this particular episode helps to further you along in your week.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: May God bless you.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll see you on the next episode.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Blessings.